A structural game-state analysis of narrative co-authorship in volumetric video games and VR journalism

Virtual Reality (VR) or “immersive” journalism is an emerging technological approach to journalism production that enables players to experience reconstructed news events in computer-generated 3D or 360-degree filmed environments. Mirroring the dominant characteristics of the medium at this early stage, much of the current research into immersive journalism has focused on place illusion, presence, embodiment and empathy. This study takes that further, examining and foregrounding interactivity, players' agency, and their potential role in storytelling. As the medium develops, there will be a challenge to establish a set of viable and effective production practices, with a need to retain professionalism, credibility, and ethical rigour while also using the full capabilities of VR as a platform. A range of constraints and influences affect both journalism production and VR. I argue, from a practitioner-academic perspective, that an approach informed by the professional practices of journalists and narrative design in volumetric video games is essential for the medium to achieve its full potential. The study considers the unique challenges and benefits that immersive journalism may offer players as well as practitioners, as an interactive medium where there is potential for shared authorship and where accuracy of representation is essential. The result is a unique blend of praxis-informed research and a comparative, critical assessment of immersive journalism’s current state. It thoroughly examines immersive journalism's strengths and weaknesses, its claims and untapped potential, the issues in journalism that VR may address or exacerbate and that mechanistic storytelling approaches from video games may improve. The key product of the research is a synthesis of the competing and disjunctive disciplines of ludology and narratology, creating a ludospatial framework and a structural game-state analysis technique and methodology. I systematically and creatively unite these disciplines to identify a subset of game mechanics and spatial design elements in volumetric video games and VR that contribute to the experience of narrative, determining the next steps in the construction of an interactive immersive journalism, and offering solutions to its current limitations. The outcome of this is a hypothetical “cool immersive journalism”; a type of non-fiction, immersive artefact and approach that enables narrative co-authorship while preserving factual veracity.